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To get rid of this desperate mood, I wrote the book "Oper und Drama." Last spring your article on "Lohengrin" inspired me to such a degree that for your sake I resumed the execution of a drama quickly and joyously; this I wrote to you at the time: but "Siegfried's Death" that, I knew for certain, was in the first instance impossible.
My wife used to declare that, when I proceeded to read from my manuscript, Kolatschek promptly fell asleep, while Herwegh gave all his attention to her punch. When, later on, as I have already mentioned, I read my Oper und Drama for twelve consecutive evenings to our Zurich friends, Herwegh stayed away, because he did not wish to mix with those for whom such things had not been written.
I happen to possess them, and send them to you, although I do not quite see of what use they can be to you. My book "Oper und Drama," in which I certainly express myself in a decisive, firm, and detailed manner, is passing through the press very slowly, and will probably not be ready before two months.
You need not be ashamed of hanging on my wall; at present I have there only Beethoven, besides the Nibelung design by Cornelius. "Oper und Drama" has long been published, as you probably know. The three operatic poems, with a communication to my friends, will appear at the end of this month, together with the pianoforte score of "Lohengrin."
OUVERTURE DIE FRAU MEISTERIN Fr. v. Suppé. DIE MUHLE IM SCHWARZWALD R. Eilenberg. FINALE A. D. OPER. ARIELE DIE TOCHTER DER LUFT E. Bach.
This furnishes us with a criterion for the technical construction of every work of art, whatever it be; each single part must contribute its share towards the whole; there must be nothing superfluous. Now let us turn to Wagner's criticism of the sunrise scene in le Prophete, which I mentioned a few pages back, in the first part of Oper und Drama.
The physiognomy of the early operas of the classic revival is still distinctly traceable in Rossini, Donizetti, and the early Verdi, after whom its career was suddenly cut short almost in the height of its fame by the publication of the first part of Wagner's Oper und Drama in 1851. From the very beginning the Italian opera was what it is now, frivolous, insincere, imbecile.
Still weary from my exhausting labour on Oper und Drama, and worried by many things which had a depressing effect on my spirits, I seated myself for the first time for many months at my Hartel grand-piano, which had been rescued from the Dresden catastrophe, to see whether I could settle down to composing the music for my ponderous heroic drama.
But in "Oper und Drama" he says: "Is it possible to find anything more perfect than every piece in 'Don Juan'? . . . Oh, how doubly dear and above all honor is Mozart to me that it was not possible for him to invent music for 'Tito' like that of 'Don Giovanni, for 'Cosi fan tutte' like that of 'Figaro'! How shamefully would it have desecrated music!"
In Oper und Drama, for example, he has a very interesting discussion on the value of consonants in the German language and on the characteristic difference between the expression of the consonant and that of the vowel, arriving at the conclusion that alliteration is better suited for the German musical drama than the imported rime.
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